


I Wish (never thought I was insecure)

by TheSerpentOfSilverPlumes



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, insecure
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-04 13:50:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15842583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSerpentOfSilverPlumes/pseuds/TheSerpentOfSilverPlumes
Summary: The times when Oliver made Marcus feel insecure.And the times when he made it better.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I think I'm moving but I go no-where.
> 
> Ultimate OTP. Forgive me for this self-serving writing.

Marcus liked the way he looked. He wasn’t an idiot: he knew he wasn’t conventionally attractive or really any kind of attractive. It was just a matter of priorities.

Marcus didn’t care about turning heads. He didn’t want to be the talking point in the female changing rooms. He didn’t want to be followed around by gaggles of first years. He didn’t want to hear his name sighed out by strangers as he passed by.

The way you looked was just another way of presenting yourself to the world, and Marcus was presenting himself precisely as he wanted to.

There was no mistaking him for anything other than the captain when he stood head and shoulders above most of the team. He’d practically been acting captain from the moment he’d made it as first-line chaser. Even the actual captain at the time could be cowered if Flint really tried. Heavy eyebrows drawn down over deep-set eyes, Marcus’ frown said enough that he rarely had to open his mouth. He knew his teeth were unpleasantly arranged – a little too crooked – and it was the kind of problem that could easily be fixed by a cosmetic charm. Marcus didn’t see it as a problem though. When he opened his mouth to smile at a mirror, he saw a face that was distinctly his for all its flaws. Besides, it offset the sharpness of his jaw and the definition of his nose. He knew they were his best features and, sometimes, braver girls could see the clearing through the trees. He wasn’t going to complain about that, but it was convenient to know that a snarled smile could send people running. His presence did that sometimes. Conversations would end, the weak-of-heart would scatter, and so his reputation grew. And that reputation suited him just fine.

His conviction was something he swore by but, apparently, priorities can change.

It was in his seventh year, what should have been his last, and he’d been scouring the bookshelves in the library late at night. It was a hail-Mary kind of evening. The Charms essay was due first thing the next day and, not only did Marcus not have more than one-inch written for the four-foot essay, he had no clue what half of the words in the question meant. It had been his own fault. He found it hard to force himself to work on something he knew he’d find difficult. Instead, he’d spent the last week defaulting into the comforts of Arithmancy. He had that homework finished two weeks in advance which was all well and good but wouldn’t help his charms grade none.

He’d been sort of stomping around – agitated by his own inability to work out how the damn shelves were organised and _why were half of the charms books on the back right wing and the other half in the front left wing, divided right across the letter D_  – when he heard a familiar voice.

He hadn’t intended to eavesdrop. He didn’t have the time for it. But it just so happened that the boys whom the voices belonged to, the sixth-year Weasley and Oliver Wood, were sat in the squashy chairs that were squeezed nonsensically into the aisle containing the first fifth of the Transfiguration books. A through to E. One bookshelf across from the charms section Marcus was searching.

He hadn’t intended to eavesdrop, but he made no great effort to block them out. Despite himself, he liked Wood’s accent.

“No offense Oliver, but your opinion of Penelope doesn’t hold much water.” Weasley spoke like he was sniffing the words out but he always kind of sounded like that. When Marcus glanced over, he didn’t look particularly annoyed. Wood, for his part, was reclining with his legs looped over the edge of the armchair and wasn’t looking up from the magazine he’d propped on his chest.

“Fair point. She’s just-”

“Big boned. And a woman.” Apparently two things that ruled her out.

Attention piqued, Marcus decided it might be worth giving the shelf another scan. Just in case.

“Which is your thing, so that makes sense.”

“Whereas your thing is more … Davies.” Davies could have only meant Roger. Marcus arched an eyebrow at himself, laughing a little at the thought but only really because he was forcing himself to.

“Davies? The guys a bit of a prick.”

“You’ve said. I didn’t mean him. I meant more-”

“His type. Yeah.” The conversation lapsed into silence when Weasley latched onto some paragraph he was reading.

Marcus stayed a little bit longer than was protected by reasonable doubt. Just to see if the conversation would pick back up again.

“He’s pretty I guess. I like that.”

And then Marcus sort of wished he hadn’t heard anything at all.

It didn’t hit him at first. He didn’t realise that he’d cared about Wood’s comment. He rolled his eyes at the thought of Wood and Davies, finding it hard to imagine two egos like there’s fitting inside one relationship, and contemplated mentioning the absurdity to Adrian Pucey.

He didn’t in the end. He didn’t want Pucey to start asking questions. Like, why would you be trying to pick a hole in an entirely hypothetical relationship involving a guy you can hardly stand. Primarily because he didn’t have the answer. He also didn’t need Adrian picking up on why Marcus had taken to shouldering Davies a little more roughly when they crossed paths or why he’d been taking shots at him and not anyone else when they watched the Ravenclaw versus Hufflepuff match.

The muttered “Fucking pretty boy,” already earnt him a side eye.

Marcus didn’t think he’d ever been described as pretty in his life. He couldn’t see it when he looked in the mirror. He couldn’t see it when he looked at old photographs. And apparently, that was Woods ‘type’.

He didn’t even realise the hole he’d fallen into until he wound up in the hospital wing, teeth missing from a rogue bludger smashed into his face by an apologetic Montague. Montague wasn’t even a beater. He’d just taken a hold of a bat and smashed it. Marcus had grinned at him through a mouthful of blood. It was a fucking powerful shot. But now he was sat in the hospital wing looking blankly up at the face of Madam Pomfrey.

“Marcus.”

It wasn’t the first time Marcus had wound up in the hospital wing with missing teeth. He needed them fixed almost twice yearly. It also wasn’t the first time that he’d been asked whether he wanted them restored the way they were. It was the first time he’d hesitated to say yes. The rest of the team, still complimenting a distressed Montague, didn’t seem to notice. Except for Adrian of course, who was appraising Marcus with a curious look.

He wondered what he would look like with straight teeth. Would it make much of a difference? Would he look in a mirror and see a guy like Davies? Would he see himself?

It wasn’t a lot of time to decide, Pomferey was looking very expectant, so he still wasn’t very sure of himself when he said he wanted them back crooked.

Adrian didn’t bring it up directly. Which isn’t to say he was tactful. “Who’ve you got your eye on then.” That was later, sat at the Slytherin table where there was so much noise around them no-one could have listened in if they wanted to. Except for Higgs, but only because Terence was sat so close to Adrian they were practically occupying the same space. (“If you just woke up on time you could have a whole stretch of bench to yourself.” “Shut up and budge over”)

Adrian and Terence had become immunised to the effects of Marcus’ glare, which might have happened around the time he got drunk enough to tell them that they were his best friends, so he had to respond with an unconvincing “no-one”.

He’d taken to staring at himself a little longer before he went to be bed each night and he’d started waking up with a tight feeling in his chest that didn’t feel particularly pleasant and reared up anew whenever Wood was near.

He still wasn’t sure he’d made the right call until Marcus found himself unintentionally eavesdropping on another library conversation.

It was the same story as last time – another Charms essay. Although this one he was almost finished with. The elation of the thought kept him buoyed as he hunted down another obscure tome in the alphabet-confused line up. He was feeling pretty good in general that evening until he heard Wood’s voice. The accent was still pleasant, but it left an aftertaste these days that Marcus’ didn’t like so much.

He’d been hearing a couple first years chattering for the last half an hour or so from that direction. In hindsight one of them must have been the Gryffindor seeker because, before the hour was out, Marcus could pick out the various colourful voices that comprised the rival squad.

“Is that firewhiskey?” A female voice Marcus’ didn’t recognise shrilled.

“Relax Hermione, they’re older.”

“This is still the library-”

“I would apologise but you don’t understand how much Wood needs this” That was Fred.

“The boy has been wound tighter than an eighty-nine-year-old virgin.” George.

“I don’t think firewhiskey will make the match go away.” Wood’s accent. He must have been worried about the upcoming Ravenclaw versus Gryffindor match. Marcus couldn’t see why. Davies hadn’t really come through this year.

“If you get detention for drinking firewhiskey in the library then you won’t be allowed to play which will _technically_ make the match go away. For you at least.”  

A detour to the back right wing, again, meant that Marcus returned in the middle of a very different conversation.

“Okay, fuck – oh sorry firsties – _fornicate_ , marry, kill … Flitwick, Dumbledore, Hagrid.”

Marcus’ hadn’t even realised you could groan in a Scottish accent. He shifted his weight when he stood to search a higher shelf.

“Why are you giving me all the hard ones.”

“Fine. We’ll ease you in. Connolly, Moran, and … Flint.” Johnson offered.

Muffled laughter. Marcus could feel his jaw tighten and the familiar feeling, the one that he’d felt less of in the last couple of days, bubble up again in his chest. He knew the smart thing was to walk away – the last thing he wanted to do was add to whatever the hell Wood had done to him the last time he eavesdropped – but it was harder to make his body move. There was some masochistic part of him that wanted to hear what Wood had to say. Wanted to hear himself picked apart. Wanted to hear that his self-assessments hadn’t been off-base. At the very least, he could say that he knew himself.

“Irish Connolly?”

“Who else.”

Connolly was, at least, good looking. Very good looking in fact. Marcus had a couple magazine spreads with his image plastered across saved beneath a mattress at home. Moran was less so.

“Okay, well, fuck Flint.”

Marcus almost missed the sound of someone’s chair crashing back onto all four legs. His own chest was thumping way too loudly and then he was distracted by a moment of panic when he thought he might drop the heavy book he’d rescued onto the stone floor. Heart somewhere up in his throat, he stopped moving altogether. Like moving might disrupt whatever the hell was unfolding a shelf over.

“Sorry Hermione, _fornicate_ with Flint. Probably marry Moran. Connolly has to die.”

“Reverse ten steps. Fuck Flint?”

He couldn’t see him but Marcus’ could imagine Wood shrugging in that devil-may-care way Wood got when he talked about anything that wasn’t quidditch.

“Yeah. For sure. The guys a dick head, but he’s hot.” There must have been some non-verbal response from his team because he started to clarify “He’s not like … handsome or anything. But he’s got to be like six-foot? Broad as well.”

“He beats you.” Fred sounded more amused that anything.

“He beats -? He doesn’t _beat_ me. We fight. I do just as much damage. Sometimes. Besides, I’m sort of in to the tough guy act. I’m just saying. He could easily push me around if he wanted to. The rules of the game say you only get one night. It’d probably be a lot more memorable with Flint-”

“Hermione’s right, you shouldn’t be allowed firewhiskey in the library.”

“You’re corrupting the knowledge.”

“I get it.” Alicia piped up. “He’s sort of intimidating. I dig it.”

Marcus handed in his charms essay incomplete the next morning. He hadn’t had a hope in hell in polishing it off.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marcus confronts Hogwarts for his eighth year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But was it worth all the wait.
> 
> Probably not but it's been almost a month and if I didn't get it out now, I wouldn't.

The open letter on the dining room table wasn’t the image that stayed with Marcus. It wasn’t even the deflated rage on his father’s face – an anger that used to burn but had been tempered over the years as his expectations for his son fell further. It was the image of his mother at two am the next morning, unkempt hair held in hands that were curled with absent-minded tension, poring over newspapers and letters and with a half-written recommendation letter.

“What are you doing?” Marcus had been hoping to sneak out the back. He wasn’t going far – he had no-where to go to – but he had been crawling out of his skin all day, out of his mind with worry that he wouldn’t admit to, and he just needed ten minutes on his broom. He took a seat across from his mother instead.

Her smile wasn’t easy. “Nothing. I just thought it couldn’t hurt to look at your options.”

“What options.” Marcus had meant it light heartedly but maybe the pain in his own voice was obvious, or maybe his mum had spent too long re-reading the same entry-level requirements and hoping they would change. Either way, fresh tears sprung to follow the tracks old ones had left stained on her face. “It’s okay mum.”

“What are you going to do?”

He had an idea, he just hadn’t told anyone yet. There was nothing that said you only got one shot at your NEWTs. Marcus had already written to Snape actually, earlier that same day – almost the moment his grades arrived. He had to pretend he was using the family owl to message Adrian. Abe would never approve of returning to education. He’d made clear how pointless he thought the years spent at Hogwarts was, how it was nothing like the real world. It didn’t matter that Abe was angry about Marcus’ poor results. He’d think the public humiliation of his son attending Hogwarts for an extra year was worse.

“I’ll figure it out.”

 

* * *

 

Marcus had almost bottled it outside the train on platform nine and three quarters. He wasn’t popular, but he was hard to miss. People knew who he was. Curious looks and mutters followed him as he stalked along the length of the train.

He almost regretted going to London by himself. He would have found it easier to cross the gap if he knew his mother was watching him expectantly – watching for any hesitation, waiting for the moment when Marcus changed his mind, waiting for him to not follow through.

He finally got on. Half way down the train and right in the middle of the Gryffindor section. That wasn’t entirely by accident. As bad as the thought of encountering Gryffindors that he recognised was, he wasn’t quite ready to face his friends yet. They mostly knew he was returning. Montague because he’d written after he hadn’t received the captaincy letter (‘If you’ve given it to Malfoy I’m going to find you and I’m going to kill you’) and Adrian because Marcus had voluntarily told him. Therefore, presumably, everyone in the house knew by now. Still, dispassionate words scrawled in clipped messages was very different from seeing them face-to-face.

An empty compartment was a god send. Marcus was doing a pretty good job of putting off any compartment hunters too. He wasn’t so good at stopping people from pausing in front of the glass to gawp at him. Still, by the time the train pulled out of the station, he was alone.

Oliver Wood threw open the carriage door, walked partly in, then did an about-turn and walked back out. Marcus counted five breaths before he walked in again.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Marcus just arched an eyebrow. He fancied he looked unaffected, but his heart was jack-hammering with anxiety. Of all the people he didn’t want to see, Wood had topped the list. Him and the rest of his team, who’d partly made an appearance behind Wood’s shoulders not long after he’d entered the second time.

Where Wood looked dumbfounded and unhappy, the two ginger twins looked ecstatic.

“Does this mean what I think it means Fred?”

“This could only mean what you think it means George.”

“So Flint is retaking the year?”

“I’m thinking Flint is.”

“Trying to up an E to an O?”

“Or a T to a D?”

“Leave him alone.” Bell had craned her neck enough to see that Marcus was sat alone and was now tugging on the sleeves of one of the Weasleys. Fred maybe. The notion of kicking someone when they’re down must have bothered her more than it did her friends. The pity stung worse.

“I thought I could smell Gryffindors.” Pucey muscled in between the Weasleys and, behind him, Higgs and Montague followed suit.

“The others are coming. Bole and the guys.” Pucey said it like it was an aside but he threw a half glace over at Bell to see her eyes widen. Bole had a bit of a thing for the girl and, Gryffindor and Slytherin rivalry be damned, hadn’t been too quiet about it.

“We really should go.” Bell tugged on a Weasley sleeve again.

Wood had gone through a range of emotions while the others spoke, the confusion the most evident. As always, he went back to quidditch. “Nice to know I’ll have another chance to take you down.”

Marcus was a little confused himself, watching his retreating back.

* * *

 

He’d dropped Charms. The A he’d got for his OWL had been misleading and he should have known better. He was taking two years-worth of potions in one year to make up for it. Arithmancy he didn’t really need to re-do, he’d gotten an E for his NEWT, but some professions required you sat all your NEWTs in the same year and anyway he might be able to up it to an O. He was repeating Astronomy too and Care of Magical Creatures.

“You’re still doing Divination? For two years all you did was complain.”

He got headaches from the stupid candles Trelawney needlessly lined every surface with, but he needed five subjects and he was good at it.

“Double potions? How did you manage to convince Snape?”

As far as Marcus knew, it was McGonnagle who’d twisted his arm. He hadn’t been able to take it last time because he’d only gotten an A for his OWL and Snape wanted an E. He wasn’t sure if she’d helped him because she thought he might genuinely succeed in the subject or because she really didn’t want him to end up in Transfigurations.

Marcus snatched back the timetable, deliberately crinkling it with his fist. Not enough to ruin in but enough that it knew he was unhappy.

“That means you have potions with Ravenclaw and with Gryffindor.” Bole pointed out the obvious over a mouthful of toast, bread crumbs spraying across the words he was reading out.

It was well known in Slytherin that Hufflepuff was the best house to share a subject with. Ravenclaws could only make you feel bad about yourself and Gryffindors were Gryffindors. Marcus had more reason than most to dread that matchup.

 

In reality, Marcus had potions timetabled with the Ravenclaws twice. Once for what should have been sixth year potions, when it was Slytherin and Ravenclaw, and again for seventh year potions. Ravenclaw and Gryffindor.

Although two years older than the Slytherins in one half, he still got some respect from them (dwindling by the year but he was, after all, still the Quidditch captain). He could find people to sit next to and bully his way into a partner. The other half was the tricky one.

The seventh year Gryffindors were a bit quicker to quip than the sixth year Ravenclaws. He was resoluteltly ignoring the murmers around him as he mainlined his way to the back of the room. He’d spotted an empty desk and decided the best thing would be to force someone else to sit next to him, rather than ask permission to sit next to someone else.

The back of the room took him down the long length of the row, however, which gave more time for the whispers to reach his ears. His neck was stained pink by the time he slunk into his seat.

As if sensing his discomfort, Snape immediately made it worse.

“You will need to find someone else to partner with for this task – preferably someone more competant than yourself Duckett or someone who wastes less time triple checking every ingredient Weasley.”

Marc could already feel his shoulders slumping with the weight of the day when Snape called sharply “Wood.”

The door to the dungeon had swung open with a laboured groan and Oliver, covered from head to toe in sweat, had managed to make it across the threshold. Although barely.

“Ten points from Gryffindor. I do not tolerate tardiness. You will partner with Flint.”

The heads in the room, the ones that had been knocked close together to discuss who was going to be sarcraficed by which odd numbered group, shot up at that.

Wood just looked dumbfounded, staring at Snape like he’d just been told he was the test subject for the crucio curse.

“What? But I need to pass this class.”

The cacophany of sniggers barely registered. To Marcus’ horror, he could feel his face flush red unbidden. Oliver didn’t even look apologetic when he swung his bag next to Marcus’. He even had the nerve to shoot him a sidelong look like Marcus might be right there with him. Like ‘yeah sure Oliver – totally unfair that they’ve put you with the failure. Totally unfair that they’re basically failing you from the get go’. He was clutching his quill so tight for the rest of the session he cracked a line down from the tip and got his hands covered in the leaking ink.

* * *

 

He didn’t avoid Oliver after that so much, but he for sure kept his distance. Everytime he saw Oliver his face burned with the same shame and the worst part was that he agreed. It was unfair that Oliver should be partned with a guy who’d already proven he couldn’t get the grades.

What the hell was he even doing back at hogwarts. In the space of one week he’d managed to mortally offend a hypogriff, that wasn’t even part of his assignment, read the divination leaves upside down, and he had struggled with one of the more basic questions in the arithmancy assigned text. A question he wouldn’t have had a problem with last year.

The words in the textbook he was reading didn’t even make any sense to him. Did they make sense to everyone else? He’d been reading and re-reading and re-reading for hours but he couldn’t understand what it was trying to say. Was he really that thick.

In a moment of anger he thought about tearing out the page he was struggling through and throwing it into the fireplace on the way out. He would have regreted it – Pince would have known immediately, for one, and he would have missed the sweet sounds of Oliver Wood groaning in frustration an aisle over.

It was petty, but it put a smile on his face.

He wouldn’t say he deliberately crossed over to see what was going on, but that was certainly where he ended up.

“You dieing?”

He was frowning heatedly at a scrap of paper he’d stretched across the table top, his distinctive chicken scratched Quidditch players darting un-co-ordianted loops around the hastily sketched land scape.

His face basically lit up when he saw Marcus.

“Thank fuck. Take a look at this.”

Marcus tilted his head. “For Gryffindor?”

“What? No. Why would I show you that? No, I’m trying to recreate this play from the Harpies but I just can’t understand where Owen came from. No-one was tracking him before he snatched the quaffle.”

“And you want my help.”

Oliver wasn’t watching his face to see the emotions Marcus was cycling through. Mostly irritation.

“Well yeah, no-one elses knows this stuff.”

“Not afraid I’ll make you forget everything you know. I hear failure is catching.”

Oliver did look up then, looking more confused than he had any right too which actually just annoyed Marcus’ more because apparantly he’d immediately and completely forgotten the comment that had kept Marcus from looking at himself in the mirror.

“What?”

“Potions. You said you didn’t want to work with me.”

Wood waved a hand dismissively. “Well yeah. Your shit at that stuff. Why does that matter? You’re a fucking genius when it comes to plays,”

The comment was offhanded and shouldn’t have made Marcus’ feel as giddy as it did. But. Did Oliver really think he was a genius? Did other people think that too? That he could be bad at exams but still good at something? Good for something?

He got the equation when he got back to the common room that evening. He’d just flipped a sign somewhere.

 


End file.
